


last night on earth always ends this way

by arbitrarily



Category: Underwater (2020)
Genre: Colleagues Know Better Than To Have Sex But Can't Help It (And Can't Stop Having It), F/M, Office Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, Pre-Canon, Rimming, Sex as Coping Mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: The worst thing about the bottom of the ocean is you ran out of places to hide from yourself. Norah realized that within one week at the Kepler Station.
Relationships: Captain Lucien/Norah Price
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	last night on earth always ends this way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlsarewolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/gifts).



> Title from the poem "Last Night on Earth" by Maggie Smith.

The worst thing about the bottom of the ocean is you ran out of places to hide from yourself. Norah realized that within one week at the Kepler Station.

The second worst is that time is malleable down here. Negotiable. They never see the sun so they built their own time table. It's third shift and she lays on her back in her bunk, unable to sleep. Instead, in the dark, she listens. Nothing. There's nothing there.

Norah's well-attuned to sound now. The groans of the station around her, the thump of the drill, distorted voices over the comms, the clank of metal on metal as they work. There is always that quiet, dread-filled part of herself that remains on alert, waiting for the high-pitched wail of an alarm. Silence is worse than any of those noises. She never recognized it at the surface—the emptiness a silence carried. Back in her apartment, back when she was alone, when she had no one, the silence felt a part of her. It was her own. It was his, too. It was what he left behind.

Down here, the silence feels like something just waiting to be filled.

Smith told her about the job. Tian Industries was hiring, expanding their underground and underwater operations. At the time, it sounded like the perfect opportunity. The farthest place she could imagine. So she filled out the application and she did the interviews and after the interviews she did the psych evaluations and at no point did anyone tell her that maybe there was a better place for her on this earth than miles beneath the ocean’s surface.

All of which was to say, Norah got the job.

After she was hired, she sat through hours of interminable new hire seminars. They were held in windowless conference rooms with too-bright fluorescent lighting they dimmed for powerpoint presentation after powerpoint presentation. There was a whole segment devoted to legal, how they technically would be in unclaimed international territory, same as outer space, and they were beholden to international law only and not any sovereign power. No nation could make any claim on any resources discovered. They said that a lot, like maybe one of them was really an operative sent by a foreign power to try to claim the remainder of the Mariana Trench as their nation’s own. Norah considered both the people in that room and then later the people she worked with. None of them seemed to have the patriotic zeal in them to do all this for a country that gave so little a fuck about them they found themselves on the bottom of the ocean trying to make a living.

At the end of the seminar, she was given a stack of nondisclosure agreements and liability paperwork to sign. Non-compete contracts. Life insurance forms. She thought of the check she already received each month. She wondered where her money would go in the event she never came back up. There was no one.

She held up the form. “I don’t need this.”

“Doesn’t matter. Corporate policy.” The answer, she would find, for most things in this job.

Smith was already down there when she submerged. He greeted her when she got there, a kind hug that felt more like he needed it than she did. Smith didn’t once mention his name and he didn’t tell her he was sorry for her loss, and it was that she was most grateful about. You could live through anything, she had learned, so long as there was silence.

Norah reports to Captain Lucien. They all do. She knew before she even got down there that he had a good reputation. “If you have to go to Hell, then at least you got a good man leading you.” She was told that by one of the veterans of Tian Industries’ trench crew. That was when she was drilled on the importance of proper safety protocol in the event she needed to use one of the deep sea pressurized suits. They spent two hours learning what the deep sea pressure could do to a person, which Norah found highly unnecessary. All they needed was a tomato and a hammer and the object lesson would be more than enough.

Lucien, she knows, has been with Tian Industries for years. The better part of his career. He’s been down here, off and on, for just as long. Back when it was only Shepard Station and a now decommissioned drill site, before the expansion.

It suits him, down here. It was the first thing she noticed about him.

Norah keeps to herself. She does her job. She's quietly pleased to find she's actually good at it. She uses the station’s grim gym facilities after her shift. Showers, the pressure always too low, always cold. She sleeps, or she tries to; she does not dream when she succeeds. She does it all over again when her next shift starts. She is a creature of habit.

Norah's two months into the job when she finally gives in and deviates from routine: she joins the boys for a night of drinking. There are a lot of rules down here at the bottom of he world, but there is also a whole lot of lenience afforded when no one is here to watch them. Captain Lucien lets them get away with a fair amount, so long as they stay in line. Get the work done. Stay safe. How they choose to blow off steam, he leaves that to them. 

She finds the boys in the staff break room. “Look at all that contraband,” she says and she grins. 

There are a lot of jokes among the crew that the rig is little more than the Wild West—only without the oxygen, the firearms, and the booze. Obviously not entirely true on the booze front, what with the array currently collected on the dented metal table. She knows, from reputation not experience, it requires only a little cash to pay off the couriers responsible for bringing supplies down to the station. Management wants to keep everyone happy, or if not happy then sane, and for some people—for most people—neither is entirely attainable. A fifth of Jack is—as is the rotgut moonshine that Paul not-so-secretly brews. 

So Norah gets drunk. Fucking shit-faced. It's easy enough to do when drinking the equivalent of rubbing alcohol and you skipped dinner because the thought of anything the caf has to serve is enough to turn your stomach. It isn’t what she wants though, not really. Sure, she sits there, crowded around the table in the staff room with Paul and Smith and a handful of other guys from first shift. Even as she laughs with them, even as she drinks, she still feels as if she's sitting away from them, at a distant remove. She isn’t really here; she is alone.

She throws back the remainder of her drink and excuses herself to her quarters. It was a bad idea to drink. She knows that now. This isn’t any place to be any less than on guard, any bit outside yourself. She can almost feel the force of the ocean around them, bearing down on her. Trying to crush her. Only her. She sighs heavily. She begins a slow shuffle that weaves through the hall back to her bunk. She passes Lucien’s office. He's still in there. He's always in there. If he sleeps, she has no idea when. It doesn't matter the shift, he's in here or he's on the bridge, he's out there with them overseeing the handling of any of the maintenance fixes. 

Norah pauses, a couple paces past his open door. 

At this point, there are two people on both this rig and in the entire world she knows well and who know her well: Smith and Cap. It didn't take long after she started for Cap to make her a de facto team leader. He likes to know everything that happens on his rig. He has her report to him at the end of her shift, brief him on any problems, emerging or suspected. He's a good captain, she knows that much for certain now. Kind, capable. A relief. He always keeps his eyes on her face as he listens to her. He actually does listen to her. It's a strange thing to be lonely for so long and then suddenly feel so seen. 

She looks out ahead at the empty hallway. The lights flicker once and then she takes two steps back. She stands in his doorway. 

“Hey ya, Cap. Burning that midnight oil, huh?”

“Norah.” He lifts his gaze from whatever schematic he has spread out across his desk. He folds it and sets it aside. He compresses his mouth, as if swallowing back a laugh at her expense. “I see Paul’s still running his distillery—and he’s not above corrupting the better members of my team.”

“I’m not drunk,” she lies.

His mouth flexes into the start of a smile, his eyebrows lifted. “I can smell you from here.”

“Okay, well, I’m not corrupted. Incorruptible. That’s me.” She enters his office. She shuts the door behind her. There is no real reason she can articulate why she does it. There is a safety to it—the door closed, the small space. Her and Lucien. 

She has always appreciated the organized chaos of his office. It's the only place on the station that feels personally lived-in. There is an oppressively clinical, institutional feel to the rest of the station, equal parts gym locker room and federal penitentiary. It's difficult to borderline impossible to make a place as cold and barren as this a home. Norah hasn’t tried. She doesn’t think she wants a home. She likes Cap’s office though. He has a couple old photos out, old crew mates from down here in the deep. There is only one photo of his family. His daughter. She's young in the photograph, looks nothing like him. He keeps it not on his desk but atop an old filing cabinet behind his chair. Everything else is the detritus that went with the job. It smells like coffee in here, whatever soap he uses. Doesn't have that persistent note of mildew or generic cleaning product that permeates the rest of the station. Bleach. Brine. Sweat. 

Norah sits down in the chair opposite his desk, her body landing graceless and loose. He watches her carefully but he doesn't say anything. Doesn't let anything show in his face. He's good at that. It's good for an authority figure to be able to come across as dispassionate just as well as he can come across as concerned and caring. 

“How are you doing, Norah?” he finally says.

She shrugs. “I’m fine. Yeah.” She scratches at the back of her neck. “I mean, I’m tired. But I’m—I’m always tired. I was tired before I got here.”

“Maybe you should have chosen a spa instead of all this.”

Norah shakes her head. “Nah. I don’t like idleness. I’ve been told that’s one of my better qualities.”

“You have a lot of good qualities.” He leans forward slightly. “You’re doing very well. I don’t want you doubting that.”

Her mouth twists and she laughs softly. “Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.” And she does. What she wants to say though is that it does nothing for the weight that sits heavy in the center of her chest. It doesn't make her any less alone. She nods to the photo of his daughter behind his shoulder. She's crossing a line, probably, but that doesn't have to be her fault. It can be Paul’s. “Do you miss your family a lot?”

Lucien exhales heavily. His shoulders slump. It's as if with one question she's managed to deflate him. 

“Constantly. With every minute that passes.”

Maybe that's why she says what she does next. “I had someone,” the words come out very slow, as if recovered after submerged too deep and for too long. She finally takes her eyes off the photo and meets his. “Did Smith tell you that?”

“He didn’t.”

“He died.”

His throat bobs as he swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

There's an open understanding in the way Lucien is looking at her. It isn’t pity, and god, she came to know pity so well in the weeks right after. Everyone felt sorry for her. It made her feel two inches high, small enough to be stepped on. Smashed. He's looking at her like he can see into her, can recognize every part of her that had gone numb or still ached. 

Norah presses her hands to her thighs and she stands up. “I should probably—I’m gonna go, sleep this off.”

She doesn't go though. Instead, she comes around his desk to him. She glances down quickly at the papers still scattered over top it. A schematic for the Roebuck, blueprints from the old Shepard Station where he used to work. She recognizes the scrawl of his handwriting, some English, some French, most a crude amalgam of both, symbology known only to him. She feels that soft brush of familiarity with those hieroglyphs all the same—that she knows him, too. Norah's taught herself to forget what it feels like to be known by someone else. To know someone else. Each person is a code in their own way, to be deciphered and learned and then further communicated. She's reminded of that with Lucien. She has yet to decide if that is a good thing or bad.

She stops before him. She doesn't think it through. She presses her hand to the side of his neck. She intends to be quick about it, pull her hand back once she felt the heat of him. She can feel his pulse, heavy and quickening. He moves faster; his hand latches onto her wrist and he holds her hand still. He leans into it. There is something neither of them were saying, something they probably never will find the words for, and that's good. That's survivable.

Norah isn’t that drunk that she can't see clearly. In fact, her clarity has never been in sharper relief. Lucien’s hand is still gripped around her wrist, and with a dim thought in the back of her mind, one that's certain that some things really are irrevocable, she brings his hand down between her legs. He doesn't move.

Reluctance sketches obvious across his face. But he hasn't released her wrist; she tells herself she didn't take him anywhere he didn’t want to go. He followed her down. She shivers, at his familiarity, but also that newness to him, that he could want her.

His eyes never leave her face. He is watching her as he lets go of her wrist. As he places his hand between her legs. At first, he doesn't move. There is only the slight weight and heat of his hand as he barely touches her. She stiffens, expectant. His hand moves slightly, rubbing at her lightly through her pants. A soft sound, barely audible, leaves her mouth in a rush of air. She wants to push him further, she is afraid he'll stop. He presses firmer against him, more pressure and more force, and her hips roll into him. His other hand shoots up and holds her back against the desk. She's wet now, wants to know if he can feel that, the heat of her even through the fabric. He drags his fingers up, approximating where her clit is. Her entire body twitches.

He's breathing hard through his nose, his face grim. He nods his head down. “Take them off.” 

She follows orders. That, per her personnel file, is also one of her better qualities. His hands feel too hot against her hips as he steers her to the edge of his desk. As he gets on his knees. 

He has her sit on the edge of his desk, her legs spread. It's hardly comfortable; she's hyper-aware of her nudity, the cold metal against the back of her thighs and her ass. He parts her legs wider, baring her cunt to him. Time has gone liquid again as she waits for him to do more. As her breath sticks in her chest, her fingers curled along the desk. She's forgotten how intimacy between two people is meant to work. It was easier to do what she had done before, she thinks. A stranger in a bar, Norah bent over a grimy bathroom sink, the man at her back capable of being anyone, anything, to her. This, here and right now, is specific. It's a choice. It's Lucien’s hands on her, large and warm, and then it is his mouth.

Now that he's given himself permission and ceded whatever resistance is built as iron rigid as most else about him, he goes full force against her. Where she expected further hesitation she is met with the opposite: he's hungry, desperate with his mouth. His beard scratches at her inner thighs and a low sound catches in her throat. There's a sharpness and a novelty to his mouth on her. She's able to fall solely into this—she doesn't compare him against anyone else. He licks her open, lets her clench empty as he sucks at her clit, his mouth on her too loud in the quiet of his office. 

When she comes, it's like the rough drag of an undertow, catching her up. Leaving her senseless. 

After, he looks up at her with wide eyes and more than a little shame. Norah reaches and she traces his mouth. It's wet, both with spit and with her. His eyes flutter open and shut as he lets her, and then he jerks away from her. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, still crouched low on his haunches.

Norah wakes on edge. She lays flat on her back. She tells herself it's another shift, just like any other. Almost as if nothing maybe even happened. She's that lonely that she dreamt it—his hands spreading her thighs, his tongue slicking inside of her to taste. Norah was warned about that, before she came down here. Both time and memory can take on a distinctly different shape this far beneath the surface. This far from human life. You’ll believe things you've never seen and believe time has slowed to a crawl. A mild spike of paranoia sketches through her. It's gone when she sees the small bruises his fingers left on the outer curve of her thigh, just below her hip. 

When she sees Lucien at the start of her shift, he barely looks at her. He looks past her, a spot just behind her shoulder, as he speaks to her. Gives her her orders for her shift. She wonders if that's shame, or something worse. Like regret. She doesn't ask him. For one thing, they're not alone, and for another, she doesn't want to know.

Later in her shift—she long ago disabused herself of the concept of night and day; they're as meaningless here as sunrise and sunset—she finds herself alone with him, briefly, in his office. Paul sent her; it would've been too obvious if she declined. 

“Hey, Cap.”

Lucien lifts his head. There's a hesitation to him, but then he eases back into his chair and beckons her in. She doesn't shut the door behind her; she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea. She's here on business. She delivers Paul’s message and Lucien rolls his eyes, a light smile trying at his mouth. His mouth. Fuck, she should have declined. His mouth between her legs, wet, stubble sharp against the shivering muscle of her inner thighs. Stop it.

She stands to go. “Norah?”

“Yeah?”

His eyes meet hers. There are darkened circles beneath him, grooved in deep. Maybe that's how he wears his shame. Guilt. A flip kicks inside of her, like a rock turned over, at the thought maybe she caused that. 

“That doesn’t happen again.”

She nods. “No. Of course not.”

It happens again. 

She doesn't even have the moonshine excuse this time. Environment, that's her new excuse. She's being molded and shaped by the pressure this deep. By her own loneliness, her grief. She wonders sometimes if she stayed on shore if both loneliness and grief would have served as the same oppressive weight on her or if simply being able to breathe, to have fresh air and the sun on her face, might have provided a release. She needs more than she's getting. 

A couple of weeks pass easy and without incident, and then Norah stops by his office. She debriefs him, tells him about the concerns growing about the Roebuck drill, the generators’ capacities, the increasing power surges. He listens without comment. When she finishes, they sit in silence. That same reckless certainty is beating fast and loud inside of her again. She knows what she wants. She wonders if he does, too. 

“Do you need me to ask?” she finally says. “Am I gonna have to make a compelling argument? Seduce you?” She can't help but laugh at the last one, a brief burst of sound that slips back into an uncomfortable mutual silence. 

Lucien lifts his eyebrows. He tries to hide his mouth as it twists, amused, with his hand, pursing his lips between his fingers. He drops his hand. “I might like to see you try.” She wants to find a flirtatious edge to that, worried she's seeing things that aren't there. 

“I’m not any good at it. I’ve always preferred the direct approach.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“No bullshit,” she says.

His posture is lazy in his chair, but even then, she can see the tight way he holds himself. Not just against her, but against everything required of him here. No, more than that. There's a grief in him she recognizes as a mirror image of her own. It's familiar. 

“Let me see it then,” he says. His voice is still casual, but low, makes something prick along her spine. “The direct approach.”

Norah didn't expected that. If she expected anything, she expected a harder sell. For him to send her out of here, and it’d be her, alone, in her bunk, her hand tucked between her legs working herself roughly, trying to empty her mind as she came.

“Alright. Fuck me.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not going to do that. I’m your superior.”

Norah’s mouth cracks open slowly, all teeth. “Morally as well as professionally,” she tries to joke. He doesn't react. “Use your mouth. I know you can.” Again, he doesn't react but for the jump at the hinge of his jaw. “I don’t think making me beg for it is part of the direct approach.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Do I need to tell you I’m lonely? Because I am.”

“I know you are.” He sighs heavily. “Come here.”

He goes down on her again. If possible, it feels more intimate this time. She's aware of everything—the sounds he makes against her, the flat press of his tongue as he drags it from her opening up to her clit. His nose as it grinds against her, mouth open and demanding now, the grip of his fingers too tight on her thigh, the forearm he thrusts over her hips to keep her balanced against his desk. The muscle of that arm cords as it tenses, tighter and tighter, and if she has to be trapped, if there has to be a barricade, this is what she wants. Her fingers curl into his arm, nails nearly breaking the skin and she feels as much as hears when he grunts against her. 

He lets her come twice like that. The second time she feels something hysterical build within her, torn between relief and disappointment when he pulls back from her. Her thighs are still shaking as she makes a mild effort at modesty, tries to close them. 

She glances down at him—he's still on his knees, out of breath. He's hard—his pants don't hide that from her. Her mouth goes dry at the thought, the understanding, that he wants this, too.

When she tries to reach for him, he does not let her touch him.

The months bleed into each other, and at some point in the midst of them, Emily joins their team as a research assistant. She's bright-eyed and anxious and talks like she swallowed a textbook. Her skin hasn’t developed the sallow complexion yet the rest of them have, living for so long and so far away from the sun. Norah likes her, even her nervous energy.

“I have a hard time with it, sometimes.” Emily tells Norah early on in her tenure.

“The isolation?” Norah says. “Yeah, man, it’s, you know.” This serves as her idea of sympathy.

Emily frowns. “No. It’s—I mean, yes, that certainly is a challenge. I meant, ethically, I suppose. There is an entire ecosystem that has not only survived down here but thrived without our presence let alone our intervention. I believe in discovery, but each day, it feels,” and Emily pauses. She has Norah’s curiosity. She leans in closer.

“What?”

“We shouldn’t be here.” Emily offers her a small smile. “When you go deep enough, there’s no telling what might be waiting.”

Norah doesn't know what to say to that. So she shrugs, falls back easily into her seat. She tries to smile, grim as her mouth is. “I find it very interesting, man. That you still can think in terms of days. Fuck, I lost that…maybe a solid week in? But then, I lost track. I couldn’t really tell you how long.”

“The Captain says you’ve been here, one of the longest.”

“Yeah. He can’t bring himself to let me go.” She tells herself she's only joking.

“Get on the desk.”

He doesn't make her ask this time. 

He knows how to touch her now, he knows what she likes, and he's willing to give it to her. She bites the back of her hand as she comes, the tip of his finger threatening to breach her. Her chest heaves. She wants it. She wants more. 

After, again, he is hard. He settles back into his chair, his legs stretched, chest moving beneath his thin t-shirt. 

“Are you gonna wait until I leave?” Norah’s voice sounds used, thick, as if she's been crying. 

There's no shame in him, not anymore, or even surprise at her question. “Yes.”

She shakes her head. She feels more relaxed than she has in weeks. Since she was brought down to the rig. Longer. “And if I don’t go?”

“You will. You’ll get bored.”

“I can be patient,” she says, unsure if that's true or not. She hasn’t bothered to put her pants back on, the long muscle down her inner thigh still twitching. “I want to see.” What she wants to know, she can't bring herself to say, is what she does to him. What he does to himself after she's gone. 

Lucien drags his hand down his chest, from the worn collar of his shirt, down past his waist. He doesn't pause until his hand covers his cock. He grips the base of it, gives it a squeeze, the sight of it somehow all the more obscene through his pants. He rubs at himself, absently, as he watches her. 

“This is what you’d want from me?” He speaks quietly, too quietly, and it's that—his tone, the softness of it, the curious inflection at the end—which drives home the intimacy of what they are doing. Sex can be just two bodies, joined, temporary and united in their desire, but to get there you have to show yourself first. She'd forgotten that. She let grief erase it. 

“Show me,” she says. And he does. His cock is already flushed and leaking when he pulls it out. His hands are wide, fingers long, and his cock fits in his grip. There's nothing self-conscious about him as he touches himself. There's no hurry either. She imagines him, sitting here, taking the same amount of time and the same pleasure each time she left him. She wants him again. She wants him inside of her. She wants to touch him, she wants more from him, but she knows better than to ask. 

He comes quietly, his teeth grit tight against her name.

Her bunk is tomb-like and cold. She lays still, waiting. The lights flicker sometimes. It's been happening more and more recently—power surges and power failures. The drill keeps faltering against stubborn resistance none of them can see. The generators are working fine, there's nothing she's been able to find to explain it. Earlier in her shift, she looked out one of the observation windows. The power had cut, all of fifteen seconds, and in that moment, she saw nothing. Inky blackness surrounded her, waited outside the window she knew to be in front of her. She listened, for something. Anything. She heard only her breathing, labored and afraid, the muffled thump of her own pulse. “We’re poised on the abyss.” Emily had said that, only she said it not with fear but with genuine excitement. Curiosity. Norah rested her hand on the bubble of glass before her, separated from all that lay beyond. It was cool to the touch. The lights flickered; all she saw was herself, amidst all that dark.

The Roebuck drill is back up and running.

“The power’s held for twenty-four hours now.” Lucien's on his feet instead of seated behind his deck. He paces, back and forth, his hand held to the back of his neck. “That’s good, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Norah says, dry. “A new record.”

Lucien scrubs a hand over his face. She looks over her shoulder at the closed door behind her. She catches the subtle shift over his features as he watches her. 

“Norah.” It's all he says, no plea in it. Just her name. 

“The other day?” She pauses, laughs quietly. “Day. Look at that—old habits, huh? There are days down here but there isn’t time.” She laughs again then presses her lips together tightly. Presses her hands to her thighs, as if she can compress herself into something small enough there won't be any cracks for anything she doesn't want to find and enter her. She lifts her head, serious now. “Emily told me that as a scientist she doesn’t believe in inevitabilities. I disagree.” She waits until he meets her eye. “We both know what’s going to happen here.”

She watches him as he breathes. Watches it fill his chest and then deflate. A remarkable feat, a place like this. He approaches her, finally. 

He stands too close to her. His hand brushes against hers, not quite holding, but solid against her. She closes her eyes, opens them. It's real. They're real. This is happening. 

He moves slowly, as if making this her decision even as it's his hand reaching down between them. He drags her pants down her thighs and she does not help him. Her body is caught between the edge of his desk and his body and she wants the snare of the trap to tighten even more. She wants him to hold her down. She wants him to be the only thing that surrounds her, nothing else able to reach her. She kisses his neck, gives him her teeth, and she wants to kiss his mouth. She bites down on his shoulder through his t-shirt instead, the cotton wet in her mouth. He seems to like that, if only based on the low noise he makes.

He pulls back from suddenly and turns her around, bends her over the desk. His mouth is on her, same as it always is, the angle the only thing different. Even if she can't see him, even if she can't watch, Norah is still incredibly aware that it's him, it's his mouth. She knows him now. His mouth licks higher, from her cunt to her ass, his tongue warm and insistent against her. She jerks forward against the desk, makes a noise that gets lost against her forearm. The intimacy of it as he continues, his tongue barely dipping into her as he licks along the rim, is nearly too much to bear. She says something largely strangled and swallowed, something that sounds a lot like his name as his thumb pushes into her cunt, as he continues to lap at her ass. Beyond sense, she feels same as she does after a good cry—shuddering and weak, desperate to be anything but alone. But this, it feels so good, it feels too much, _she_ feels too much, she doesn't want him to ever stop. She's liquid beneath her waist, open and wanting, dripping into his hand. She can't catch her breath when he pulls back from her, her legs barely able to hold her up. She feels empty, the air cool on her bare skin, uncomfortably so where she’s spilled down wet against her thighs. She turns her head so her flushed cheek rests against the cool top of his desk.

“Fuck me,” she says, the words only a little slurred.

“Norah,” he says. He sounds pained. She wills her body to move, to at the least turn around. He's still on his knees, looking up at her, eyes dark, mouth firm. His face is wet from her, from his spit; the image alone turns over something possessive and animal deep within her. 

“I know you’re lonely, too,” she finally says. Anything else would be a lie. She could tell him this doesn't have to matter, but she's certain it's already too late for that. It matters. It mattered from the start. She can't remember the last person who touched her as he has, who's been inside of her and she actually felt it. Grief takes up so much space inside a person. But he's shown her, with his mouth and his fingers, with himself, that there's still room. There's room for more. 

Lucien gets to his feet. When he kisses her, it's a messy collision that knocks her back. It feels almost like an afterthought, something they've already done to each other. He fits between her thighs, and Norah pulls at his pants. She still has her bra on, even as his hands cover her breasts, her nipples hard. The chain hangs around her neck, the ring tucked against her chest, warm from the heat of her skin. His hands grip the underside of her thighs as he pulls her up, as he finally pushes inside of her. 

It's hard now, to stay quiet, the overwhelm of the stretch of him inside of her. The overwhelm of his body pressed to hers. He's rough with her, but there's still tenderness. His mouth latches to her throat, down, presses to her collarbone, tongue and teeth and spit. She cradles the back of his skull in her hand, vulnerable in a way that makes her squirm. He wraps his arms tight around her as his hips tip into an erratic, demanding pace. She holds on, gasping hungry satisfaction. This is what she wanted. This connection with another person, the reassurance you are not alone. She's coming, or it's as if she never stopped; she clenches and shivers around him. She drags him down with her.

The tile is cold under her bare feet. Norah has the bathroom to herself. She steps in front of the sink and turns the faucet on, then off. She rolls her neck. She feels the familiar weight around it, against her chest. Heavy, but bearable. She can carry it. She brushes her teeth. She stills. Overhead, the lights flicker. The medicine cabinet parts open. She waits. She thought she heard water dripping. 


End file.
